There had been power and bravery in the man from the beginning; and his faculties gained poise and gathered purpose through the stormy springtime of his life. Now he stood forth prince-bishop, feudal duke; a man strong of arm and clear of vision, steadfast against the violence of his brother nobles who oppressed the churches and cloisters within their lordships. The weak found him a rock of defence. Says his biographer, Caesar of Heisterbach:
“He was a defender of the afflicted and a hammer of tyrants, magnanimous and meek, lofty and affable, stern and gentle, dissembling for a time, and when least expected girding himself for vengeance. With the bishopric he had received the spiritual sword, and the material sword with the dukedom. He used either weapon against the rebellious, excommunicating some and crushing some by war.”
Under him archbishopric and dukedom prospered, their well-managed revenues increased, palaces and churches rose. No mightier prince of the Church, no stronger, juster ruler could be found. Said Pope Honorius after Engelbert’s death: “All men in Germany feared me from fear of him.” From the lay and German side is heard the hearty voice of Walther von der Vogelweide, no friend of priests! “Worthy Bishop of Cologne, happy should you be! You have well served the realm, and served it so that your praise rises and waves on high. Master of princes! if your might weighs hard on evil cowards, deem that as nothing! King’s guardian, high is your state, unequalled Chancellor!”[620]
Archbishop of Cologne, duke of its double dukedom, and Regent of the German realm, Engelbert was well-nigh Germany’s greatest figure during these years. If his arm was strong, his also was the spirit of counsel and wisdom. And although bearing himself as prince and ruler, he had within him the devotion and humility of a true bishop. Said one of Engelbert’s chaplains, speaking to the Abbot of Heisterbach: “Although my lord seems as of the world, within he is not as he appears outwardly. Know that he has many secret comfortings from God.”
The iron course of Engelbert’s life brought queryings to the monkish mind of his biographer. Caesar felt that it was not easy for any bishop to be saved; how much harder was it for a statesman-warrior-prelate so to conduct himself in the warfare of this world as to attain at last “the peace of divine contemplation.” Not thither did such a career seem to lead! But there was a way, or at least an exit, which surely opened upon heaven’s gate. This was the purple steep, the purpureum ascensum, of martyrdom. Caesar was not alone in thinking thus, as to the saving close of Engelbert’s career; for a devout and learned priest, who in earlier years had been co-canon with Engelbert, said to Caesar after the archbishop’s murder: “I do not think there was another way through which a man so placed (in statu tali positus) could have entered the door of the kingdom of heaven, which is narrow.”
Caesar tells the story of this martyrdom in all its causes and details of plot. That plot succeeded because it was the envenomed culmination of the hatred for the archbishop felt by the nobles—bishops among them too—whom he restrained with his authority and unhesitating hand. Frederic, Count of Isenburg, a kinsman of Engelbert as well as of the former archbishop, was the feudal warden of the nunnery of Essen, which he greedily oppressed. The abbess turned to Engelbert, as she had to his predecessor. The archbishop hesitated to proceed against a relative. So the abbess appealed to Rome. Papal letters came back causing Engelbert to take the matter up. He acted with forbearance and generosity; for he even offered to make up from his own revenues any loss the count might sustain from acting justly toward the nunnery. In vain. Frederic, so we read, would have none of his interference. The devil hardened his heart; and he began to incite his friends and kinsmen (who were also the kin of Engelbert) to a treacherous attack upon the man they could not openly withstand.
Rumours of the plot were in the air. Said a monk of Heisterbach to his abbot: “Lord, if you have any business with the archbishop, do it quickly, for his death is near.” Engelbert himself was not unwarned. A letter came to him revealing the matter. Upon reading it, he threw it in the fire. Yet he told its contents to his friend the Bishop of Minden, who was present. Said the latter: “Have a care for thyself, my lord, for God’s sake, and not for thyself alone, but for the welfare of your church and the safety of the whole land.”
The archbishop answered: “Dangers are all about me, and what I should do the Lord knows and not I. Woe is me, if I keep quiet! Yet if I should accuse them of this matter, they would complain to every one that I was fastening the crime of parricide on them. From this hour I commit my body and soul to the divine care.”
“Then taking the bishop alone into his chapel, he began to confess all his sins from his very youth, with a shower of tears that wetted all his breast, and, as we hope, washed the stains from his heart. And when the Lord of Minden said: ‘I fear there is still something on thy conscience which thou hast not told me,’ he answered: ‘The Lord knows that I have concealed nothing consciously.’ But thinking over his sins more fully, the next morning he took his confessor again into the same chapel and with meek and contrite soul and floods of tears confessed everything that had recurred to his mind. Then his conscience being clear, he said fearlessly: ‘Now let God’s will regarding me be done.’
“In the meanwhile some one was knocking at the door of the chapel. The archbishop would not let it be opened because his eyes were wet with tears. But the knocking continued, and it was announced that the bishops of Osnabrück and Münster (brothers of Count Frederic) were there. After he had dried his eyes and wiped his face, he allowed them to be shown in, and said when they had entered: ‘You lords both are kin of mine, and I have injured you in nothing, as you know well, but have advanced your interests, as I might, and your brother’s also. And look you, from all sides by word and letter I hear that your brother Count Frederic, whom I have loved heartily and never harmed, is devising ill to me and seeks to kill me.’